Given name change due to gender change - how to

[S Holmes]

I've been away from ReunionTalk for several years so this might have already been answered but I can't find it with a search.

How do you recommend to document the legal change of first and middle names done by a person due to transitioning from male to female or from female to male? From birth up to the transition he was known by his birth name, but already is known by his new name and will be making it legal soon. It is complicated by him not wanting to be reminded of his birth name, of course.


Thanks,
Steve Holmes

[SGilbert]

My tree is fact! I would not change name, but add change such as: John Henry->Jane Henrietta. I would also keep the male designation, but add info into notes.

[Bob White]

Typically, you are not handing out reports or giving said person access to your file. In the grand scale, it's not a really big concern. Having said that, I have two changers. One is sensitive and the is not. I have spoken directly with both. I am following their desires if and when I put out a report that includes either person. In actuality, the situations are both a decade old and I have not had to do anything with reports. It is a good thing, however, to be prepared if the situation pops up.

[S Holmes]

Thanks.
SGilbert: Where would you put the John Henry -> Jane Henrietta notation? In Notes? Or in the name field? I will probably keep the gender field as unknown for now, but may have to change it back to female later. Or something.

Bob: I haven't talked to anyone other than my wife about this issue. The person in question is a grandchild so there is a parental unit to get involved as well. This is an evolving situation.

Thanks for your help.

Steve Holmes, likewise Macs (except also Unix at work "I don't do windows") since 1985,
iMac, iPhone, Reunion 13

[Bob White]

Regardless of the reason, I stick to a policy of changing the primary name only for legal reasons (court blessed name changes, citizenship changes, etc.) So, I would stay with John, explain a name change in Notes and that would alert me to gentle handling if I need to share information. (Steve H: If you happen to be in northern California and spot a VW with personalized plates 4VR MAC, that would be me!)

[SGilbert]

S Holmes,
Yes, I would put all of that in the name field. Again: Fact.

[Blaise A. Darveaux]

I would put the original name in the name field as usual. I could consider a name change as an event or a fact, so I would put the new name in one of those along with approximate date.

[gharmstrong]

I recently documented a trans relative and essentially followed Bob White’s logic and solution. In my case the name and gender where legally changed. I used the new name as the primary name and changed the gender field. I then documented the changes in both the Events and Notes fields, using the sensitive data delimiters, {}, as appropriate. The delimiters allowed me to document the name and gender change but easily exclude that from the Reports.

[thomprod]

I have many people in my Tree that had one name at birth and another that they changed it to later in life. Some are first names and others are surnames. I put the birth name(s) first in square brackets with the changed name(s) after. For example, Marvin Samuel [Riznikove] Reese was born Riznikove, and changed his surname to Reese after his father died to make it easier to spell and to sound less "foreign". Another example is [Sonya] Sarah [Coggin] Cohen, whose name on her passenger manifest and Certificate of Arrival was Sonya Coggin, but after arriving in the US, she changed it to Sarah Cohen. Since I have actual documents of both names, the use of the square brackets preserves the original names and allows both names to be easily searched.

For those relatives who have changed their gender, I check their current gender and add a note about their gender at birth, sometimes surrounded by "sensitive" {braces}, as gharmstrong suggests above.

[AlPrunty]

Well I had my first transgendered person in my file... they explained it to me the female version died and was reborn as the male version. Confusing concept, but I notated it in the notes.

Now have a whole crop of young ones who are claiming all kinds of weird gender and pronoun things. This is how they are teaching them in the schools now. They are claiming there are actually 50+ genders out there now... color me old fashioned but you only are born with one of two biological sexes. To rectify this I've just created a fact called Gender Identity. I wish I could change the other gender to just say biological sex and then use the fact for whatever they choose.

Maybe we can use a fact or an event that states the transition date and then record the new gender in the Gender identity.

Like this.

FACT - Current Gender - Record Biological Gender here
EVENT - Transition - Date, time place they transitioned to a different gender. Putting more explanation in the fact notes.
FACT - Gender Identity - Recording whatever they identify as... Male, Female, Genderfluid, Asexual etc.

Might want to use the new word Cisgender in there somewhere.

CISGENDER: Cisgender (often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people who have a gender identity, or gender expression, that matches their assigned sex. It is the opposite of the term transgender. There are two versions of the term: cis male for "male assigned male at birth" or cis female for "female assigned female at birth".

It's all confusing to me too... but the schools are teaching this now and even at a young age telling the kids to pick their pronouns and gender identity. It's becoming common on television now where they have "genderfluid" characters like in the Connors or the new Quantum Leap show.

Personally I have my own beliefs which are unpopular with the young crowd... but if they read my research they want their "Gender" right. All of my family history is in TNG and online for the family to see. It's important that they know who is who in our family and where they come from.

Allen